John Payne may refer to:

Robert Florey (14 September 1900, Paris - 16 May 1979, Santa Monica, California) was a French-American director, screenwriter, film journalist and occasional actor.

Born in Paris, and at first a film journalist, Florey moved to the United States in September 1921. As a director Florey's most productive decades were the 1930s and 1940s, working on relatively low-budget programmers for Paramount and Warner Brothers. His reputation is balanced between his avant-garde expressionist style, most evident in his early career, and his work as a fast, reliable studio-system director called on to finished troubled projects, such as 1939's Hotel Imperial.

He directed more than 50 movies. His most popular film is likely the first Marx Brothers feature The Cocoanuts of 1929, and his 1932 foray into Universal-style horror, Murders in the Rue Morgue is regarded by horror fans as highly reflective of German expressionism. In 2006, as his 1937 film Daughter of Shanghai was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, Florey was called "widely acclaimed as the best director working in major studio B-films".

Ellen Drew (November 23, 1915 – December 3, 2003) was an American film actress.

Born Esther Loretta Ray in Kansas City, Missouri, Drew worked various jobs and won a number of beauty contests before becoming an actress. Moving to Hollywood in an attempt to become a star, she was discovered while working at an ice cream parlor where one of the customers William Demarest took notice of her and eventually helped her get into films.

She became a fixture at Paramount Pictures from 1938 to 1943, where she appeared in as many as six films per year, including Sing You Sinners (1938) with Bing Crosby and The Lady's from Kentucky (1939) with George Raft. She moved to RKO in 1944. Among her leading men were Ronald Colman, William Holden, Basil Rathbone, Dick Powell, and Robert Preston (in Night of January 16th and Night Plane from Chungking).

Her films include Christmas in July (1940), Isle of the Dead (1945), Johnny O'Clock (1947), The Man from Colorado (1948), and The Crooked Way (1949). In the 1950s, with her movie career on the decline, she worked as a television actress.

Faith Domergue (June 16, 1924 – April 4, 1999) was an American television and film actress.

Born in New Orleans, Domergue was adopted by Adabelle Wemet when she was six weeks old. When Faith was 18 months old (in 1926), Adabelle married Leo Domergue. The family moved to California in 1928 where Domergue attended Beverly Hills Catholic School and St. Monica's Convent School. While still in high school, she was signed to a Warner Brothers contract, and made her first on-screen appearance in Blues in the Night (1941).

After graduating in 1942, Domergue continued to pursue a career in acting, but after sustaining injuries in a near-fatal car accident, her plans were put on hold. While recuperating from the accident, she attended a party aboard Howard Hughes's yacht. Hughes was taken by her, so he bought out her contract with Warner, and signed her to a three-picture contract with RKO. After an unsuccessful, long-delayed premiere in the film Vendetta (1950), Domergue left Hughes. She later freelanced in a number of films, including film noir Where Danger Lives (as a femme fatale opposite Robert Mitchum), westerns (Santa Fe Passage) and in 1955, three sci-fi/monster films (It Came from Beneath the Sea, This Island Earth and Cult of the Cobra).

Rod Cameron (December 7, 1910 - December 21, 1983) was a Canadian-born movie actor whose career extended from the 1930s to the 1970s. He appeared in horror, war, action and science fiction movies, but is best remembered for his many Westerns.

Cameron was born Nathan Roderick Cox in Calgary, Alberta. He moved to Hollywood as a young man and started out as a stuntman and bit player for Paramount Pictures. His early films include Heritage of the Desert with Donald Woods and Russell Hayden, Rangers of Fortune with Fred MacMurray, and Henry Aldrich for President with Jimmy Lydon. He also played bit roles at Universal Pictures, including in If I Had My Way, starring Bing Crosby and Gloria Jean.

In 1943, Rod Cameron gained star status in action serials for Republic Pictures. As crime-busting federal agent Rex Bennett, Cameron battled enemy terrorists in 15 weekly episodes of G-Men vs the Black Dragon. He was already working in another serial when audience reaction to Black Dragon made him a hit. Cameron was so popular that the studio turned the new production into another Rex Bennett adventure, Secret Service in Darkest Africa, with Cameron again battling against Axis agents.